Sunday, April 03, 2005

Oh, and just in case we forget

According to an article in the Akron (OH) Beacon Journal,
There's a one-in-959,000 chance that exit polls could have been so wrong in predicting the outcome of the 2004 presidential election, according to a statistical analysis released Thursday [by USCountVotes, a group made up of about two dozen statisticians]. ...

The statistical analysis ... shows that the discrepancy between polls and results was especially high in precincts that voted for Bush - as high as a 10 percent difference.

The report says if the official explanation - that Bush voters were more shy about filling out exit polls in precincts with more Kerry voters - is true, then the precincts with large Bush votes should be more accurate, not less accurate as the data indicate.

The report also called into question new voting machine technologies.

"All voting equipment technologies except paper ballots were associated with large unexplained exit poll discrepancies all favoring the same party, (which) certainly warrants further inquiry," the report concludes.
Links to the full report and an executive summary are at USCountVotes homepage, linked above. Thanks to Smirking Chimp for the tip about the article.

Footnote: A representative of the scummy J. Kenneth Blackwell literally laughed off the report, claiming Bush voters "have been much maligned by outside political forces who didn't like the way they voted."

That's framing, folks. It is, they say, "outsiders" (it's hard to believe that still carries the weight it does) who are "maligning Bush voters." Put another way, Blackwell, who is running for governor, is saying to his base "They're attacking YOU!"

And this is counter-framing: "We're not attacking the voters. We're attacking the vote counters. The fact that Mr. Blackwell apparently can't see the difference is yet one more reason to question his impartiality in overseeing the election results."

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